#SatyamevaJayate: the TV show in the times of Twitter and Facebook

It was tipped to be the next show to watch out for! The PR machinery was put to good use and like the marketing that they do for their films. I was also getting into the romance of watching a TV show after a long time… Let me admit I dont have an idiot box for company in my small place called home here. But I was sure that they would not miss to be online and given that it is the best that could happen! I was waiting for the day. Some of my readings eventually were upbeat and how it was going to change the Sunday programming forever, read this & this!

So on this lazy Sunday that has kept everyone repair their alarm clock, I rose around the same time to watch it on twitter. You need not watch the episode to figure out what was happening. You know where to look for the ideas ofcourse the trends… it was #SatyamevaJayate all over the timeline, good bad and whatever you could call it.

Now imagine I was given a full treatise of what was happening the interpretations and ofcourse the commentary on that something akin to what CNN IBN does these days Live tweet from the first day first show.

Some one even tweeted how the camera cuts to a moist eyed audience. There was much more the sets and every line uttered was getting on the time line like it was the big thing happening.

Yes according to me it was big for the reasons that it was a Sunday that people were not taking TV seriously or that it was across multiple screens in effect, even had subtitles across where it was being telecast especially in non hindi states and what with joining hands with DD, it made for a cocktail of mammoth proportions not seen for a while in the TV programming.

It started to trend like there is no tomorrow. Even the IPL brouhaha could not displace it from the top trend list. What was the most important insight was that at one time 8 of the trend was of the same programme so much for the activity and talk on twitter.

It would have had some of us hold our head in shame when it was revealed how the educated were more into female foeticide than the rural uneducated masses as we see it. It also left quite for a teary eyed watching and some relief that some good folks were up there in the streets happy with the kids…

It created a lot of discussion on twitter and we know how it gets on on lines of ideology and am not here to point who is right or who is wrong but give the program its due to have successfully put the moot point on the table for dicussion. Some top tweets here!

i absolutely loved #satyamevjayate. at least aamir is doing what all of us only talk about.

I was keen that I watch it without any premonition of whatever I have heard and believe me it was absolutely a great show and there was no break in between and man what a production, and if this guys gets into the news business he will give all these guys a run for the money. It was about 300 views when I watched it and now as I write it has got more than 28,000 views…

So was there a lesson, yes it sort of created the discussion that it aimed for:

Thats a mind boggling number and any social media analyst will vouch for those numbers almost half of those ppl talking about it… and numbers like 274630 are not small. Contrast that to the biggest brand Page of Coca Cola with 41 Million fans and just about 289556 people talking about it!

For a post on feedback it had almost 3500 odd people reply / comment on it and share it on their timeline, we could gauge the snow ball effect that it can have… what more can you ask for. Possibly you could tie in the numbers for the engagement ratio that this show can boast of. I am only giving what we could see, but there would have been innumerable folks who would chat and discuss this thread bare on ground. Kudos to that.

With this kind of analytics which is pretty in the face I am sure we can take the TV going social engagement as a kind of metrics for future shows. I remember on the Jan 15 which is Pongal day in TamilNadu, a program by Illayaraj the music maestro was trending on twitter. It did show for once Jaya TV trending for the first time a differentiation achieved with the competition Sun TV which has a mass following.

Well we are in for some great social TV in the days to come, on the other hand TV as a medium today felt vindicated or was it me thinking so? The answer lies in one of the most important lessons we all have learnt, ask MTV, Coke or Pepsi, they will tell you “Content is king!” and now its the Queen and the masses too!